Tory MP to present bill banning BDS movement in Britain

London (QNN)- British Member of Parliament has announced on Tuesday that the British government will pass legislation to ban the Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) movement in the UK in the coming months.

During the Leadership Dialogue Institute (LDI) 2021 online conference, which aims to foster ties between Australia, UK and ‘Israel’, Robert Jenrick, a member of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party and former secretary of state for housing, said the bill, which will be presented in the coming months to the Parliament, will ban the BDS movement in Britain.

Jenrick stated that “In the following months, we will be working to outlaw BDS in the UK.”

“I think we’re beating BDS here. Today, there is no political party in the UK to support BDS, and this is becoming an increasingly fringe activity,” Jenrick said.

He added, “What we want to do is pass legislation here, and I’m pretty confident it will be in the legislative program the spring of next year.”

“There’s a question of how broad that law can be, obviously I want it to be as broad as possible, so there’s next to no avenue that BDS could continue,” Jenrick said.

The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, as it defines itself, works to end international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and pressure ‘Israel’ to comply with international law.

The BDS is now a vibrant global movement made up of unions, academic associations, churches and grassroots movements across the world. Since its launch in 2005, BDS is having a major impact and is effectively challenging international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.

Several countries and US states have banned the BDS movement. Many US states are using anti-boycott laws and executive orders to punish companies that refuse to do business with illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Opponents of the BDS movement who support ‘Israel’ view it as anti-Semitic and designed to destroy Israel’s economy.

The Conservative Party’s manifesto during the 2019 general election in the UK included a commitment to “ban public bodies from imposing their own direct or indirect boycotts, disinvestment or sanctions campaigns against foreign countries.”

In 2020, the Supreme Court overturned a government order banning local authorities from divesting their pension funds from ‘Israel’.

The judges’ decision followed a legal challenge by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign against guidance issued by then Communities Secretary Sajid Javid in 2017.

Following the court’s ruling, the government said it was committed to ensuring public bodies took a “consistent approach to investments and (stopped) local boycotts”.

Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer has said his party does not support BDS.

However, at the party’s policy-making conference in Brighton last September, Labour members passed a motion which branded ‘Israel’ an apartheid state and called for British sanctions.

The motion further demanded actions against “the building of settlements, reversing any annexation and ending the occupation of the West Bank and the Blockade of Gaza.”

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